Down $1.50 or -1.9%
The price of WTI crude oil futures are settling at $77.43. That is down $1.50 or -1.9%.
The price is settling near the lows for the day at $77.06. The high for the day was up at $79.78.
The move to the downside was helped by comments early in the US session that Russia's Putin that "Russia is interested in stabilizing global oil prices".
Adam reports that there is also talk of SPR release that would ease some of the supply issues.
The weekly oil inventory data did not hurt the decline trend as it showed a surprise build for the second consecutive week. The data today showed:
- Oil inventories +2346K vs -418K expected
- Gasoline +3256K vs -279K expected
- Distillates -396K vs -1007K expected
